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Amazon cuts Whole Foods prices
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ljlolel 9y agoReports the news outlet owned by Jeff Bezos
- colinbartlett 9y agoYour quip implies some conflict of interest or nefarious intent, however: 1. They disclose that like they do in every article that mentions Amazon. 2. Many other outlets are reporting this. (Another one is on the front page of HN as I write.) 3. Do people honestly believe that Jeff Bezos exerts much, if any, editorial control over The Post?
- kelukelugames 9y agoAs much as Rupert Murdoch. I saw someone else on HN comment. The editor is competent enough to figure out the owner's views without asking.
- endlessvoid94 9y agoThat assumes quite a simplistic management structure.
- objclxt 9y agoI don't really know what the point you're trying to make is? All the price cut information is from a press release[1] that was reported on by NYT, CNN, MSNBC, WSJ, amongst others. [1]: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=2295514 http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-ne...
- lvs 9y agoYou know exactly the point he's trying to make, since you made a counterargument to that point. The point is obviously that there is a conflict-of-interest when a publication reports on its owner's business activities. Not much to argue about it really. The conflict-of-interest is by definition.
- minimaxir 9y agoAnd the remedy for a conflict-of-interest is disclosure, which is done as early the second paragraph.
- jack9 9y ago> the remedy for a conflict-of-interest is disclosure In what arena is disclosure a remedy for conflict of interest? Recusal is the remedy.
- mikeash 9y agoWhat would be the consequences of a conflict of interest in this case?
- hkmurakami 9y agoIt's also reported by WSJ earlier in the day. Standard PR engine in action.
- btian 9y agoThat gives me even more confidence the story is correct.
- tarboreus 9y ago"Correct?" I'm sure any numbers in it are accurate. But these stories are essentially press releases. > “The two companies will together pursue the vision of making Whole Foods Market’s high-quality, natural and organic food affordable for everyone,” they said in a joint statement. “Whole Foods Market will offer lower prices starting Monday on a selection of best-selling grocery staples across its stores, with more to come.” and > “Everybody should be able to eat Whole Foods Market quality — we will lower prices without compromising Whole Foods Market’s long-held commitment to the highest standards,” Jeff Wilke, chief executive of Amazon Worldwide Consumer, said in a statement. “There is significant work and opportunity ahead, and we’re thrilled to get started.” Some hard-hitting journalism here, especially considering the first thing Amazon is doing is leveraging their juggernaut status to lower prices and undercut competitors. Sure, we'll see "blistering competition" now, but when these other businesses falter and only Amazon is left standing, there won't be any news stories trumpeting the fact. Amazon is being particularly serious about PR on thsi one since they've gone so deep into anti-trust territory, and because they know that the false signifier of price that has been used in anti-trust cases for the last few decades is their shield against claims that they're a monopoly.
- Fej 9y ago"Your margin is my opportunity." - Jeff Bezos Seems like they are continuing to follow this ethos.
- rectangletangle 9y agoHopefully they maintain their quality. I always treated them as a specialty store, where I could get specific hard to find, or high quality items, particularly cheese. If they cut too deep, they loose their appeal (at least to me).
- tvanantwerp 9y agoAgreed. Whole Foods' reputation is a high-end one. If quality drops or the typical assortment of goods becomes more like a lower-end chain, then I'll likely lose any reason to go.
- QAPereo 9y agoHonestly Whole Foods could drop their prices by quite a bit, increase their efficiency in some areas such as no more blanket allowance for returns, and still make tons of money.
- taude 9y agoWhole Foods is the only place I've ever returned food. Once, I returned some clams and muscles, because when I got home, it was obvious they were bad. I also returned some produce that literally wasn't eatable the next day.
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoWill shoppers now refer to it as "partial wallet" instead of "whole wallet"?
- dotnetisnotdead 9y agoI prefer "whole paycheck"
- uniformlyrandom 9y agoGood. Whole foods is a nice idea gone horribly wrong (horribly expensive)? I buy some stuff I cannot find anywhere else from WF, but I get the rest for half of what WF is asking next door.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- borisj 9y agoIf Whole Foods was in financial trouble before the acquisition, I don't imagine they'll be able to cut prices and maintain their quality. Something's got to give and I think it's going to be that "nice idea" you mention.
- skybrian 9y agoOn the other hand, Amazon has deep pockets and is okay losing money for a while. So who knows?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jedberg 9y agoAmazon could optimize the supply chain. The could also bring their technology expertise to minimize overhead (such as replacing all the cashiers with their "no checkout" system).
- dotnetisnotdead 9y agoincredibly smart. There's a bit of a loss after an acquisition for obvious reasons which usually means cutbacks and trimming the fat etc. Looks like Amazon will be doing this but found a way to create a small rush of customers to offset it a bit. Very smart. I for one will be going in there just to see what has changed. I haven't been in a WF for 2 years (new seasons girl here) mostly because of cost.
- skadamou 9y agoAs a new seasons girl myself, I worry about what kind of long term impact Amazon might have in this market place. I’ve always considered WF and New Seasons to be direct competitors. I would hate to see New Seasons swallowed up or driven out of business by Amazon
- dotnetisnotdead 9y agoSame here, they seem to do a lot for the community, and have items you can't find anywhere else easily.
- mack1001 9y agoI feel this is the beginning of the end of instacart. Amazon is getting into same day delivery big time with this. Now they own the grocery warehouses to drive the end to end supply chain.
- victor106 9y agoIt could in a way be good for Instacart. They could partner with other grocery store chains more easily as those other stores would be more willing to fight Amazon. It depends on how they play the game.
- mack1001 9y agoIt could also mean that other grocers will need to bring delivery in-house to compete or instacart will have to start white labeling delivery.
- prostoalex 9y agoInstacart thrived on price-insensitive markup-insensitive Whole Foods crowd. Remains to be seen if they can convince the price-sensitive coupon-clipping clientele to pay the delivery fee and disregard the random product markups within the app. The average check also drops significantly at the lower end of the market - a dude stopping at 7-11 for a bag of chips, a Big Gulp Slurpie and a lotto ticket is unlikely to be their prime customer in terms of unit economics.
- bigbugbag 9y agoFighting amazon means giving little to no money to shareholders and reinvest it in expanding business. It's close to fighting google on the "pay with your data instead of money because we are the largest ad network".
- koolba 9y agoUnless they've got logistics so tight that their delivery cost is less than the grocers doing themselves, I don't see this working for Instacart. The margins for groceries are already paper thin. Consumers have no appetite for delivery fees so vertical integration and proper logistics is key. Only path I see for them is getting acquired by a major grocer purely for the platform. That grocer would become the first party integrator. I don't see that happening though as it'd be cheaper for them to do it from scratch in house.
- fragsworth 9y agoI'm willing to pay extra to eat ethical meats/dairy/eggs and products that generally avoid factory farming. And otherwise eat vegan. By the look of things, Amazon will eventually get rid of most of these things that Whole Foods made very easy for us. Yes it's more expensive. That's because the cheapest foods that you buy at the cheapest supermarkets are fucking terrible for the livelihoods of animals. Not a fan of this corporate buyout. Amazon clearly has a much different direction in mind for this chain. I wish they bought Kroger instead.
- x3n0ph3n3 9y agoNow you won't have to pay extra? What's your indication that the quality or sourcing of the food is changing? > "Everybody should be able to eat Whole Foods Market quality -- we will lower prices without compromising Whole Foods Market's long-held commitment to the highest standards," Jeff Wilke, CEO of Amazon Worldwide Consumer, said in a statement.
- nick_urban 9y agoDo you have a source for that? Hopefully they'll lower prices by introducing operational efficiencies, and not by lowering ethical standards.
- michaelchisari 9y agoFirst, you might be interested to know that a lot of Whole Foods' products are not particularly ethical or organic. They carry that stuff, true, but they don't have any kind of total commitment to it store-wide. Second, everyone I know who has ever worked at whole foods could talk for hours about their internal inefficiencies, food waste being a huge one. Their pricing was also almost whimsical, the most extreme example being their $4.99 "asparagus water". My guess is that Amazon took one look at the books and saw that they could easily lower prices without suffering much in the way of profit loss. This doesn't necessarily imply there will be sweeping changes in quality.
- fragsworth 9y ago> My guess is that Amazon took one look at the books and saw that they could easily lower prices without suffering much in the way of profit loss. Well, I hope you're right, but I think you're wrong. Here's why: Amazon wants to dominate the world of retail, and Whole Foods currently targets a specific and smaller demographic than "The World". Amazon needs to expand the demographic to reach everyone else. The way they do that is by removing most of the expensive things Whole Foods carries, and replacing them with cheap, less ethical alternatives. This means we'll eventually lose a lot of the things Whole Foods carries. For a lot of vegan and ethical suppliers, Whole Foods is the vast majority of their sales, and they'll just be shut down.
- TearsInTheRain 9y agoI was surprised at how quickly this was approved by the FTC. I think they should be more active in preventing corporate consolidation.
- positr0n 9y agoWhat would be their basis for preventing the sale when Amazon controls 0.19% of the U.S grocery market and Whole Foods controls 1.21%?
- TulliusCicero 9y agoThis, and also anti-monopoly enforcement is usually oriented around prevention of consumer harm. Amazon has done little in the way of harming consumers in their business; quite the opposite, actually, Amazon has been pretty freaking great for consumers.
- TearsInTheRain 9y agoAmazon accounts for 43% of all online sales last year. They have a market cap 10x the largest than kroger's and costco. You would have to be incredibly naive to think they arent going to easily go scorched earth and put dozens of companies out of business. That sounds pretty anti-competitive to me.
- ajaimk 9y agoSeriously, why implement a paywall that can be dodges with Inspect?
- kevinstubbs 9y agoThe paywall doesn't have to be all or nothing. Probably a very small minority of their readers are capable of bypassing the paywall using browser dev tools.
- kardos 9y agoUntil someone makes an antipaywall browser extension
- cpeterso 9y agoI wrote a Firefox extension called "Open Page in Private Window" that adds a toolbar button to open the current page in a new private window. This won't bypass all paywalls, but it is useful for reading articles on websites that limit the number of articles you can read per month. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open-page-in-private-window/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open-page-in-...
- elyobo 9y agoFirefox's new focus browser has been great for this when opening links from RSS/FB/whatever else as well.
- noobermin 9y agoWill there be as sexy of a press release when he cuts wages and lays off workers?
- sidlls 9y agoGiven the source as posted, probably.
- dsr_ 9y agoYes, but it will talk about the new grocery-store robots and the efficiency of self-service scanning.
- swalsh 9y agoConsidering Jeff Bezos also owns the Washington Post, he could sell the laid off employees at the butcher counter, and still get a raving article written about it.
- freehunter 9y agoI haven't looked into it, but I've heard it claimed a lot (including by the president)... does Bezos really retain editorial control over the paper? I'll admit I don't really know how newspapers work, but I feel like if there was an internal memo that said "Hey I'm Jeff, don't write bad shit about my other companies" someone would have leaked it by now. Does Bezos actually control the messaging coming from The Washington Post?
- noobermin 9y agoHe need not. The control need not be explicit, it might be as simple as admin isn't so hot about A's application for a promotion over B's because of that critical article, they may not realize it but it can be there. And, from B's perspective, s/he knows that A's critical article is a strike against them, hence why they refrained from writing it. Not trying to draw a false equivalency, I'd say the ordering in terms of worseness is explicit censure >> reporters anticipate implicit bias == admin shows implicit bias > full journalistic freedom
- amelius 9y agoAfter so many reports of fake items on Amazon, I wonder where this is going. Fake food?
- synicalx 9y agoI'm waiting for the Facebook reviews; "I ordered non-dairy, gluten free, fair trade, ethical, lactose free, halal, sanctified, low salt, low carb, kosher rice but instead I just got a plain bag of white rice and no certificates. Literally shaking right now"
- myrandomcomment 9y agoWell, you'll work harder With a gun in your back For a bowl of rice a day Slave for soldiers Till you starve Then your head is skewered on a stake Dead Kennedys - Holiday In Cambodia Sorry. The rice bit just sent the mind there...
- ljf 9y agoJust the pedant in me, but seems odd that the title doesn't read: 'Amazon cuts Whole Foods prices' Surely the name of the company is 'Whole Foods'? (just edited this comment for clarity and grammar)
- dang 9y agoI bet WaPo headline writers had some esoteric reason for it, but our inner pedants agree, so have an 's'.
- abrowne 9y agoI feel like it should be to be "Whole Foods' prices"¹, which makes me feel like the headline writer did that so that they didn't need to add an apostrophe to the name. Weirdly, the article has one use of "Whole Food stores" in the text too despite many other uses of "Whole Foods" > Amazon said it will continue to lower prices at Whole Food stores and will eventually offer special discounts and in-store benefits to Amazon Prime members. 1: Or "Whole Foods's"? I get almost 100,000 ghits for that.
- makecheck 9y agoMost Whole Foods stores I’ve seen aren’t exactly hurting for business and the parking lot is basically full. If their stuff becomes cheaper, that’ll drive demand way up, at which point they’ll need to have more ways to buy. That might mean building more stores but my guess is that Amazon is expecting online shopping to go up once it becomes a bit too crowded at the actual stores.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago> If their stuff becomes cheaper, that’ll drive demand way up, at which point they’ll need to have more ways to buy Or resolve the bottlenecks.
- cuchoi 9y agoAnecdotal evidence but the Whole Foods I have visited in the Boston area are a lot less crowded than other supermarkets.
- freehunter 9y agoYeah maybe it's just my location every time I've been to Whole Foods it hasn't really been that busy but the inside has seemed insanely packed because the aisles are so small and the displays are laid out poorly. It's hard to get through.
- X86BSD 9y agoMy whole foods are also much much smaller than my local Hy-Vee, or price chopper super markets.
- freehunter 9y agoGood lord I miss Hy-Vee. I used to live in that area of the midwest and I moved a few years back... I miss nothing more than Hy-Vee. It might sound weird to be so attached to a grocery store, but Meijer is just not the same.
- afpx 9y agoI'll believe it when I see it. "salmon, avocados, baby kale and almond butter" - sounds more like they're going to go the Trader Joe's route: have a few high-visibility loss leaders that give the appearance of generally low prices but higher prices overall. That said, I'm looking forward to the 365 brand being available through amazon.com. But, like at Trader Joe's, I'll have to re-check packaging to see from where they're sourcing the food.
- quaunaut 9y ago> Other foods that will be cheaper beginning next week: Bananas, eggs, ground beef, rotisserie chicken, butter and apples.
- freehunter 9y ago>from where they're sourcing the food Completely off topic, but do you naturally avoid ending sentences with prepositions, or do you edit your sentences when you realize you've done it? Like many people, I was taught in school not to do that, but the lesson never stuck because I really don't care enough. However, I can easily see when myself or others have ended with a preposition or (more notably) when they avoided it like you did. It's one of those things that stands out to me as a language nerd. It's something that I want to not care about, but deep inside I'm super conflicted on.
- capnrefsmmat 9y agoIf I may alleviate your preposition anxiety, a quote from Garner's Modern American Usage (p. 654): > The spurious rule about not ending sentences with prepositions is a remnant of Latin grammar, in which a preposition was the one word that a writer could not end a sentence with. But Latin grammar should never straitjacket English grammar. If the superstition is a "rule" at all, it is a rule of rhetoric and not of grammar, the idea being to end sentences with strong words that drive a point home... > Winston Churchill's witticism about the absurdity of this bugaboo should have laid it to rest. When someone once upbraided him for ending a sentence with a preposition, he rejoined, "That is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I shall not put." I once received an angry email from a reader of my book complaining about sentences ending with prepositions; my reply ended every sentence with a preposition. Perhaps I enjoyed that too much.
- fullshark 9y agoI'm pretty skeptical Amazon knows how to run a premium grocer. I hope they didn't do this only cause they saw Whole Foods as a way to super charge their prime pantry program.
- tomhschmidt 9y ago"PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in."
- fullshark 9y agoAs a WF consumer I'm more concerned that they are going to destroy the whole foods brand and sacrifice the premium grocery market segment in their lust for scale then that they will fail. There's no question every other grocer should be scared shitless by this development.
- troisx 9y agoI agree. So far my grocery experience with Amazon has been awful. Two items were returned by the shipper due to damage before they even got to my house. Another was crushed when it got to my house because Amazon's packaging was terrible. They kept trying to give me a refund instead of a replacement and all I could say was "I ordered this food because I wanted to buy it and eat it, why would I just want my money back?". So if that's how they manage to run Whole Foods, then I guess I'm all-in on Trader Joe's.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- randyrand 9y ago>Everybody should be able to eat Whole Foods Market quality Strange. Last I heard Whole Foods has made no effort to get this quality of food into the hands of 7.2 Billion people that aren't Americans. Or maybe it should be okay that different groups of world people have access to different quality of food. But you can't have it both ways.
- cgb223 9y agoIt's funny that a paper owned by Jeff Bezos is reporting on a company owned by Jeff Bezos cutting the prices of another company just bought by Jeff Bezos
- grandalf 9y agoTrue. I predict that in 20 years he'll be the richest man in the world many times over, things are just getting started.
- Robelius 9y agoI’ll check back in 20 years and hold you to your word.
- adventist 9y agoI'd doubt that these links will work in 20 years.
- mcny 9y agoI started thinking but all comments are available on firebase as if firebase will continue to exist in twenty years.
- krisoft 9y agoUse the http://longbets.org/ http://longbets.org/ platform. Oh wait. Another Bezos project. :)
- panarky 9y agoIt's fun to bash on great accumulations of power, that's my instinct too. But despite all the controversial things Amazon has done, they still seem to live up to their #1 leadership principle [0]: Customer Obsession - Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers. Since the first result of the WF acquisition is lower prices for customers, it looks like that tradition continues. If Amazon makes good on their third principle, "Invent and Simplify", they'll fund lower prices with higher efficiency and greatly expand the number of people who can afford WF quality. [0] https://www.amazon.jobs/principles https://www.amazon.jobs/principles
- johnhenry 9y agoProbably not the right place to say it, but I really hope Amazon/Whole Foods pays attention to the quality of their hot bar foot. In some locations, it's consistently great, while in other locations, not so much...
- nemo44x 9y agoI believe that top quality ingredients will be strictly reserved for better restaurants and home cooks that are willing to pay for it. There just is not possible production capacity for this level of ingredient that the common person can freely buy which is what Amazons strategy is here. They can make a splash by lowering the price of a few ingredients with shocking price tags, like avocados. But will be impossible due to supply lines and cost of production for Amazon to turn Whole Foods into a high end merchant of top quality ingredients while maintaining any kind of margin. If they want to play the Amazon loss game they can for awhile but eventually when a financial crisis hits and they have to rely on cash reserves, this cash poor company relative to their peers will be in trouble. VC's subsidize Uber rides. Amazon investors subsidize these types of ventures. For now.
- gigatexal 9y agoSweet! We can go back to Whole Foods again. And the Amazon Prime member’s discount is rad.
- sowbug 9y agoBrick and mortar retailers finally got their way in 2012 when Amazon started collecting sales tax in states where it had no physical presence. This removed the reason for Amazon to avoid that very same physical presence in so many states. Now we have local Amazon warehouses with one-day and same-day delivery, Amazon delivery lockers in convenience stores, Amazon-operated delivery vehicles, and soon Amazon grocery stores. Is this the level playing field[1] that B&M retailers had in mind? 1. http://www.mercurynews.com/2012/09/13/mercury-news-editorial-amazon-others-finally-will-pay-california-sales-tax/ http://www.mercurynews.com/2012/09/13/mercury-news-editorial...
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- whipoodle 9y agoMaybe so but I don't see that as an argument against having Amazon collect the sales tax.
- bayonetz 9y agoI think they are just pointing out an irony and that Amazon is having the last laugh.
- velobro 9y agoAmazon's last laugh will be when the average consumer gets used to their innovative "checkout-less shopping experience" and forces the smaller B+M retailers to license the technology or risk going out of business.
- whipoodle 9y agoYes, just making it clear that it's a good idea to collect the sales tax regardless.
- sjg007 9y agoAmazon wants to be the Ocado of the usa and will probably take out blue apron as well.
- odammit 9y agoCheaper avacados. Well melt my California heart. If you want an awesome combo on savings with Amazon in the meantime sign up for their cash back credit card then buy all of your household items using it "through subscribe and save." It'll end up saving you ~15% (5% cash back; 10% off) on most of your household and pantry items.
- perseusprime11 9y agoSomething about reading this news in Bezos owned Washington Post feels weird to me.
- petraeus 9y agoIts hilarious to me to think of the type of people who buy "organic" while driving around in their v6s living in their million $ homes and dressing in designers clothing. its a feel good type of marketing intended for the weak minded ignorant hypocrites. You actually want to save the world? live a minimalist lifestyle, stop over-consuming and realize your wealth is actually destroying the planet.
- ExactActuation 9y agoSo damn true. It's really such a funny dichotomy that's lost on those sort of folks.
- indigo0086 9y agoA horror only capitalism can create...oh you said cut prices.
- diogenescynic 9y agoI just ordered three 14 pound boxes of cat litter for $20 with free delivery on Amazon pantry. It's frightening how they can operate with margins so thin. If Amazon can to afford to take the same strategy with Whole Foods, Costco, Safeway and all the other regional supermarket chains are in for a world of hurt.
- codemati 9y agoAnyone know if this will be applied to prices in Canada?